Death as birth and birth as death

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Death as birth and birth as death

VI Born to die and to be reborn

 

This painting illustrates a miracle which allegedly took place more than two and a half decades before its composition. It tells the story of Saint Augustine and Saint Stephen descending from the heavens to attend the burial of the Count of Orgaz (depicted in the centre of the painting in magnificent armour) as a reward for the good deeds he was renowned for throughout his life. 

The six large yellow candles, the presence of some clergymen, as well as the processional cross and the priest (with the black chasuble typical for funeral processions) show that the artist was commissioned to paint «a procession of the priest and other clerics, who were performing the office for the burial of Don Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, Lord of the town of Orgaz». 

However, apart from the funeral elements, the canvas on closer examination also reveals some details that recalls a birth.  El Greco might well have imagined the soul of the dead one as a human foetus: the deceased slips through the narrow canal that connects the earth with heaven. Once through the painful passage, it is received by the Virgin in the same way a midwife receives a baby when it first sees the light of day. The concave figure formed by the saints holding the corpse as well as the darkness of the lower part of the painting are in turn reminiscent of the womb from which the foetus emerges.

Death does not appear as the end but rather as the beginning of an eternal life, the birth into a new existence. Other testimonies of this time express similar ideas. Martin Luther (1483-1546) compares death with the birth of a child: «Everyone will have to venture out joyfully on this path, which, although very narrow, is not long. […] With peril, pain, and fear it comes out of the small abode of its mother’s womb into an immense heaven and earth, that is, into this world. In the same way, the person goes through the narrow gate of death, out of this life».  [Hannah Mühlparzer]